As generally known in the context of the Internet and Web Browser programs, “bookmarks” refer to locally stored URL (“Uniform Resource Locator”) pointers that primarily have been used by users to catalog Web pages they have visited or plan to visit. Users can click on a bookmark to have the Web Browser program navigate to the Web page identified in the URL of the bookmark.
More recently, new technologies commonly known as “bookmarklets” have been introduced. A bookmarklet is similar to a bookmark except that the URL stored in a bookmarklet contains an unobtrusive script (usually JavaScript program) which usually causes the Web Browser program to perform some function as opposed to having the Web Browser program navigate the user to a Web page. Bookmarklets can perform a wide variety of functions, some of which can include extracting data from or appending HTML (“HyperText Markup Language”) elements to the DOM (“Document Object Model”) of a currently loaded Web page in the Web Browser program. Additionally bookmarklets can be used to send data to and/or receive data from Web services.
More recently, users have used bookmarklets to either individually or collaboratively save data extracted from the DOM of a Web page (i.e. text, images, URLs, etc.) to collections within a central repository (i.e. database) provided by a web service. Furthermore, users can attach custom data to the data extracted by the bookmarklet prior to saving it to the collection, such as is commonly performed in social bookmarking systems whereby users add tags to bookmarks containing URLs extracted by a bookmarklet. A collection can be thought of as a specific grouping of data within a repository. For example, a collection within a repository can be represented as digital photo albums within a repository of digital photo albums provided by a web service whereby each album is comprised of select digital photos that the user selects to be included in the album.
A shortcoming of bookmarklets used by web services as a means for users to submit data to collections within centralized repositories, such as some social bookmarking systems, is that the bookmarklets are not differentiable or uniquely identifiable by the web service and usually execute a user agnostic JavaScript program, whereby requiring the user to log in to the Web service to submit data to the appropriate collection associated with the users account, which is determined by the web service after the user is authenticated, authorized and a session is established. Additionally, the user may need to create an account with the web service in order to log in while using the bookmarklet to submit data to the collection. The aforementioned Web services use the users' account information to appropriately direct the data to the correct collection and, optionally, control what type and how much data a user is authorized to submit to a collection or repository as a whole.
It is an object of this invention to provide a means by which a Web service can provide uniquely identifiable bookmarklets whereby each uniquely identifiable bookmarklet is attributed to specific collections within an information repository and the administrative users of those collections can control how each bookmarklet can be used to submit data to those collections by other users without requiring those other users to create user accounts with the web service.